If you’ve put any significant amount of time into Battlefield 3‘s multiplayer, chances are pretty good you’ve encountered some cheating.  I’m not just talking about exploits (like those jerks who ride MAVs to get to nearly-impossible-to-defeat positions), but straight up game-ruining hackers.  It used to be you just had to worry about wallhacks or aimbots, but we seem to find cheaters in BF3 coming up with even more creative and diabolical ways of stat padding.  For example, in one recent game I played, a player on the opposing team was able to enter a console command that instantly killed every single one of my teammates who were spawned in.  In a 64 player server, you can imagine what his score looked like at the end of the round.

Unfortunately, a quick look at the leaderboards shows that many of the top-ranked players are blatantly guilty of serious stat padding at best, cheating at worst.  As of this writing, the #1 player in the world based on score per minute is listed at 11,450 and has a skill level of -1,241 (yes, that’s a NEGATIVE skill).  A look at rankings based on K/D ratio shows that the #2 player sits at 101.18 and is aptly named “Punkbuser-SUXX.” So that begs the question: if Punkbuster can’t handle the cheater crackdown (you know, the one fucking thing for which it’s designed), what is there to be done?

DICE have been stepping up their anti-cheat efforts as of late, bringing the ban hammer to bear on hundreds of “confirmed cheaters” (even, in a scandal that would make any politician proud, including a player who had been promoted to Battlelog moderator) as well as wiping the stats of other sketchy individuals (if you happen to know what qualifies a player for a stat wipe instead of a ban, please sound off in the comments.  I personally have no idea), but it still doesn’t seem to be enough.  DICE maintain that the most effective way to catch cheaters is for you to take action and report* suspicious players through Battlelog, but a new job opening suggests they’re trying to get proactive.

The actual job page doesn’t mention that this position is specifically for BF3, but in light of recent events, I think it’s safe to assume that would be the hiree’s first priority.

*In case you don’t know how to report a player, the easiest way is to look at your Battle Reports (the clipboard icon in the bottom left corner), then find the player on the scoreboard and go to his profile.  Once there, look in the top right corner for the small triangle with an exclamation mark, just below the “Find Soldier” field.

Click on the triangle and you’ll see a link to “Report Player,” which opens a text box for you to enter any information you think relevant.  Keep in mind that there are a limited number of Battle Reports available, so don’t wait too long to report someone.